


Don't Make Me Leave Like This

by Duck_Life



Category: Marvel 616, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Goodbyes, Secret Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 13:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3898738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hank's leaving to get on the life raft. Jubilee's the only one around to say goodbye, but she's too angry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Make Me Leave Like This

It’s after two in the morning, has to be, when an exhausted and frazzled Jubilee barges into Hank’s lab carrying her crying son. “Hey,” she says, voice strained and weary, “he was asking for you. Kept saying _Uncle Henny_ and making those grabby hands.”

Hank lifts an eyebrow, hands on his keyboard stilling. “Really?”

Jubilee shifts. “Well. No. He was saying _buh_ and… crying and screaming, mostly. Here.” Carefully, she nestles Shogo into his arms, pale hands contrasting with his blue fur. “I just can’t deal anymore tonight. I’m beat.”

“I’m sure,” says Hank, rocking his arms a little. Shogo quiets up almost immediately, much to Jubilation’s amazement.

“Unfuckingbelievable,” she breathes. “You are _magic_.”

“Nope,” he says with a slight grin. “Just fuzzy.” His attention on Shogo, he neglects the buzzing monitors and machines around him.

Jubilee doesn’t. “So… what’re you doing up so late? Illegally downloading movies?” Her eyes flick from him to the progress bar on one screen at sixty-two percent.

“Just, ah, backing up the hard-drive,” he says, shrugging it off. Hank McCoy is a rotten liar. But then again, he’s got a lot on his mind. The two of them spent the entire day glued to the TV set (three of them, if you counted Shogo who sat on the floor and played with his toys) watching footage from what very well might be the end of the world.

It’s a pattern, at this point, has been for years. The X-Men go out to fight; Hank and Jubilee (who transferred seamlessly from The Kid to The One With The Kid) stay home and watch, biting their nails (or in Hank’s case, claws).

“Mmkay,” she says, leaning against the doorframe with a sour expression. “And the truth is…?”

He won’t look at her, just brushes a hand over Shogo’s head. When the baby startles, Hank whispers, “Shhh,” and Jubilee’s pretty sure it’s meant for both of them.

“Hank.”

“It’s ah…” He pushes his glasses up, falters. “Due to the imminent overlap of the multiverse, precautions were necessary to-”

“Don’t _filibuster_ me, McCoy.”

“I’m leaving.” It comes out abruptly, like he didn’t mean to say it. When he sighs, his big shoulders sag. “Reed Richards… ah, the whole Richards brood, apparently… has constructed a kind of. Ark. A life raft. In case-”

“In case we don’t make it,” she finishes, feeling cold all over. Hank just nods.

“They’ve invited me. Or… ordered me, difficult to tell. But.” He can’t look at her, he can’t meet her eyes. “I’ve decided to go. I’m, ah, backing up all my files so I can take them with me.”

“To where?” she says, an arm sweeping out. If it could, her heart would be pounding furiously right now. As it is, all she feels is cold and stiff and angry. More like a zombie than a vampire. “Where are you even _going_?”

“Wherever’s left,” he says. It’s barely a whisper.

“Unfuckingbelievable,” she says again, but with so much malice that he winces. “All you scientists jump ship, what about the rest of us? What about Shogo?” As she speaks, she takes her son back, barely noticing as he starts to cry again. “You’re leaving us to die.”

“Jubilation-” But she’s gone, she’s storming out already, leaving him alone with his computers and his guilt.

At five a.m., Jessica Drew knocks on the door. Jubilee answers it.

Jess explains awkwardly that she’s there to pick Hank up, as if they’re going on vacation. Or, no, Jubilee thinks, like they’re going to war. Except, not. Hank’s not going to war, he’s running from it. She sits at the table festering with resentment, sipping what she tells Jessica is Red Zinger tea.

When Hank arrives in the kitchen, a heavy-looking backpack slung over his shoulder, he nods at Jess and looks immeasurably sad when he sees Jubilee there.

Covering it up quick with a fake smile, he says, “Come to see me off?”

Jubilee just glares at him over the lip of her mug.

“You know,” Jess says to her, even more uncomfortable than before, “Henry is—he’s not just an X-Man. His responsibilities-”

“No,” Jubilee says, keeping her eyes on Hank. “He is _not_ an X-Man. We don’t run away. We don’t give up.”

Hank asks Jess to give them a minute, please, and sits down across from Jubilation. After a long pause, he tells her, “I can’t leave like this.”

“Good,” she says with a huff, letting her fangs flash just slightly. “Don’t.”

“Jubilation-”

“ _Don’t_ call me that.”

He doesn’t try again, just contemplates her, not with his usual scientific attentiveness but with worry, pain. “When they asked me, at first, I said no. I told them… that I had a family, that I had to stay.” A few of the students and staff must be waking up now; the school around them begins to hum with activity, movement. The kitchen just feels like a crypt. “But then I really considered my family,” Hank continues. “Jean’s dead. Logan’s dead. Warren doesn’t remember anything. Scott… well, you get the gist.”

“Everything’s not Disney World all the time, so you’re bailing.”

“No,” he tells her, his voice thick. “No, I… I can’t _help_ in any other way. What am I supposed to do out there with Storm and Bobby? Jump around? And this isn’t some virus I can cure-”

“Well _that’s_ good, considering how you handled the last one,” she spits back. He doesn’t even react, just gives her that horribly sad look. It annoys her.

“I can’t help in any other way,” he says again. “But maybe I can find a new world. Somewhere I can help. Somewhere better.” It doesn’t sound sincere. It sounds like something he’s repeated to himself, over and over and over until he believes it.

Jubilee breathes, centers herself. “I never liked Moira MacTaggert,” she says, pleased when she sees that she’s actually managed to surprise him. “I know that’s prob’ly bad to say, ’cause she’s dead, but I didn’t. And I never liked Dr. Rao. Doctors, scientists… they all just seemed the same. Cold. Distant.” She sips her Type O to cover up the fact that her voice is about to crack. “But you know, I always thought… here I always thought you were different, McCoy.” That hurts him. She can see that it hurts him, and she’s viciously happy about it. “I mean, do you even care? Are you even gonna miss _any_ of us?”

Hank jerks suddenly, whips around and unzips his backpack. Pulling out a large black book, he slides it across the table, his actions erratic. Evidently, she’s struck a nerve.

Curious, Jubilee flips open to cover of the book to find… her face. It’s an old picture of her and Bobby in goofy mirrored sunglasses they’d picked up at the dollar store, staring off into the distance like they’re on a cop show.

There’s Jean and Scott, laughing at the beach. Warren, blue and beaming. Rogue, lifting an annoyed-looking Logan.

She flips the page and there are more recent pictures: Warbird, an extremely serious expression on her face in contrast to the Bamfs crowding around her; Storm and Rachel, celebrating at Harry’s Hideaway; Kurt and Piotr, flexing as if they’re comparing muscles.

It’s not a book; it’s a photo album.

“I know it would be easier to digitize them, to bring them with my data,” Hank says, sounding older than he ever has. “But I just… it wasn’t the same.”

And there it is, in his voice. It hits her. She’s been angry with Hank, thinking this was a decision he’d made, but she didn’t _get it_ until now.

It’s a decision he _forced_ himself to make. It’s not so much something he’s doing as it is something happening to him. Something he can’t stop, something he _wants to stop_ but can’t.

Kind of like the end of the world.

Without even thinking, forgetting she’s supposed to be mad at him, Jubilee’s around the table in a second and clinging to him, holding back the tears until she realizes that Hank’s already crying, shaking slightly. He’s going away and she’s being left behind and maybe they both die. Everything’s ending. And there have been shake-ups before, tragedies upon tragedies, but it made a difference when you knew the sun would rise in the morning. Even if you weren’t there to see it. Even if it rose only to hurt you. The sun always rose the next morning.

“I kinda thought I might live forever,” Jubilee mumbles into his fur.

“You still might,” he says, whispering like he doesn’t want to risk jinxing it. “Do it. Save the world. Make me and everyone else on that life raft obsolete. Fix this. Save everyone.” Maybe it’s too much of a burden, but then she _is_ one of the most competent, resilient people Hank’s ever known.

“Lemme put that on my to-do list.” She takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes. “ _Jeez_ , Hank, how… how’m I s’posed to take on all this without you there cracking lame jokes?”

“Well, you know,” he shrugs, forcing out a smile, thinking of the time-displaced X-Men, “I do have a spare.”

After a couple minutes, Jess pokes her head in the door and says they really need to leave, _now_ , if he’s going at all.

“I’m going,” Hank says, and places the photo album back in his bag before zipping it up again. “I’m…” He turns to Jubilee, unsure how to say goodbye even after all this. It’s one reason he’s glad the majority of the X-Men are too busy out fighting right now.

“When you get to your new world,” Jubilee says, “name something after me. Something big. Like a country. Or an ocean. Or the planet.”

“I’ll put it on my to-do list.” He follows Jess to the door, starts to step out after her, but he turns back and glances at Jubilation Lee, standing alone in the kitchen. “Listen,” he says. “If you make it to Christmas… I was going to buy Shogo some of those periodic table building blocks. I never got around to it. Could you-”

She just nods, not trusting herself to speak. She doesn’t say goodbye either, just waves as he walks out the door.

Light splinters through the window as the sun begins to rise. 


End file.
